The present invention relates to a distribution management system for managing temperature of a commodity that should be transported and stored under controlled temperature until it is delivered to a consumer.
In distribution, it is important to keep a value of a commodity under transport until it is delivered to a final consumer. However, when temperature of commodities such as frozen/refrigerated foods or perishable foods that should be treated under controlled temperature increases to improper temperature during transport or storage, the freshness of the commodities will be lost, which decreases the commodity value. Therefore, various distribution management systems for managing temperature of a commodity during transport and storage have been developed.
Publications of unexamined Japanese patent applications P2002-036656A, P2002-046815A and P2002-096913A disclose conventional distribution management systems.
The distribution management systems disclosed in the publications measure room temperature inside a transportation container that can be carried by means of transport every moment, and accumulate the temperature data obtained by the measurement in a server computer or the like. And then, when a retail seller receives a complaint from a consumer about a sold commodity, for example, the retail seller obtains the temperature data from the server computer to do a follow-up survey for checking which step lowered the commodity value in the distribution channel
However, since the conventional distribution management system measures room temperature inside the transportation container only as shown in the publications, it was impossible to check conditions of commodities one by one. Temperatures at different positions may be different to each other even in the same transportation container. Therefore, the conditions of the commodities maybe different depending on their positions. For example, the increase of the room temperature inside the transportation container from the opening and closing of the door thereof may deteriorate the condition of one commodity even if the condition of another commodity is normal. Further, many of frozen foods or the like are difficult to check their contents by appearance because of packaging, in general. Therefore, a commodity whose value is lowered due to the increase of the room temperature may be delivered to a consumer.
Furthermore, in the conventional distribution management system described above, a follow-up survey after the distribution of the commodity can specify the point of time when the commodity value was lowered during distribution. However, the conventional system could not make a quick response such as a supplement of a commodity, an apology to a retail seller and indemnity to a retail seller at the instant following the lowering of the commodity value.